Les Crottes de Chien ~ Summer Awards

Voici my first (and possibly last) blog entry wherein I give awards for various items of special mention and excellence in their fields of, well, whatever.

To start things off, let's have a look at Mother Nature.

Why pick on Her?  The answer is very quick and easy.  It's because the weather in July and August here in the City of Lights has, frankly, sucked.  It's been cold and wet for going on two straight months.  But, you say, at least June was nice.  Right?  Um, sorry.  Everyone was still working Like a Dog two months ago.

Things are so bad that tourism is down.  Way down.  In some places we're welcoming 50+ percent fewer guests.  In the most popular places there are at least 15 percent fewer people than last year.  Rappelez-vous that last year tourism was down in France due to a bunch of people running around and chucking things throw the air in London.  Even the Rom thieves left Paris for London to see the Olympics and to pick up a few quid along the way.

It's serious.  The weather is depressing.  Just look outside and you'll see what I mean.

In spite of the tourist-dousing weather, Jude and I have worked on our tans.  It's good enough to fool most people into believing we've spent a good month or two away on les vacances.

Having said that, Harry the Diplomat tells us that come Septembre the French will return home from les conges annuels in a very grumpy mood.  Afterall, what mood could one possibly be in after spending a Glorious Month away from the city... um... under a gray and many times spitting sky?  No tan.  No beach.  No sun.  Ugh.

Mother Nature, this one's for you.

The second Crotte de Chien award goes to an American company for taking a business that used to be ranked #1 in the industry (Test and Measurement equipment) to #3 in a field of three in five short years.

How'd they do it?  They mistook a high tech company for something it most definitely wasn't and stripped assets ("free cash flow!") beyond any ability to recover.  The acquiring group paid $3BILLION for the business and wanted to get their money back as soon as possible.

What better way to set the tone an impose the new corporate culture than to piss off the employees?  Jim Lico laughed in the face of an employee who innocently asked (in front of a rather large crowd, mind you) if he was moving manufacturing to China.  Within six months her's and thousands of other jobs were given to the People's Republic of China.  Is it any wonder that American companies that rely on virus/malware-free software stopped buying from them?  This was, of course, only after Jim had threatened the Governor of the State of Oregon with moving jobs overseas if he wasn't granted a huge tax break.

One of the next faux-pas they made was to bring in the Loose Canon. This man fears that CEO (Larry Culp) will find out he doesn't know what he's doing.  So his bravado is even greater than many "senior executives".  While twisting the company this way and that, wringing out as much money as he could, Amir Aghdaei foolishly laid off the group of engineers who knew how to make the widest, fastest, deepest analog to digital converters in the world. 

Amir thought he could buy the parts the business requires by going to an outside company that had never made these kinds of parts.  His claim was that instead of waiting five years for world beating performance parts (the old group told Amir it would take that long to move to a newer technology), he told everyone we'd have great parts in a year.  That was five years ago and still there are no new parts.

Well, Larry seems to have wised up, realized that it takes knowing something about technology to successfully run a technology business and has moved Amir out of the company he single-handedly mis-managed into near oblivion (going from $1Billion/year down to struggling to make $400Million/year on the original core business). 

In a rather telling comment the CEO told the media that "...our task and challenge is to innovate as best we can."  But, you might ask, the New Guy doesn't know anything either, right?  Interesting times, these.

Try acquiring something that doesn't exist (the take-over group is very "acquisitive", as they say on Wall Street).  Try rebuilding a team of skilled engineers half a decade after you've gotten angry at their proposed schedule and arrogantly sent them into the un-employment line.  Try "innovating" your way cheaply into success by relying on Chinese engineering when engineers in that country don't believe in the laws of physics (ask them if grounding of electronic equipment is required and prepare to pick your jaw up off the floor at their reply).

In the meantime, Tektronix has become only one in a rather long line of "rollup company" controlled zombies.  No real way of generating "organic" growth (one of Larry's favorite phrases) after you've Kaizen'd out the door everything that's not nailed to the flow, including probably the single most important innovating engine the company ever had.

So, to Danaher Corp goes our second Crottes de Chien award.  Great job, guys!  Pray Wall Street doesn't find out how "well" you really understand your markets, customers, and how you really run your businesses.

Lastly, we would like to address a few things about how "stuff" gets done around these parts.

Take, for instance driving une kilometer par heure over the speed limit.  It's a ticket-able offense here.  If one of the 1,000 police cameras record you, you receive a Nasty Gram in the mail demanding 137Euro.

Here's another example of what I'm getting at.  The month of August typically allows free on-street parking every weekend.  Let's say you pull up to the curb, park, and walk up the street to enjoy a relaxing three hour lunch on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.  Let's then say you spy a little green piece of paper on your car's window after downing the last glass of chardonnay wine.

What is it? you might ask.  Well, it's a little note from the police saying there has been an infraction.  It gives absolutely no indication what that infraction was.  Further, there is no indication of the time, date, nor the number nor name of the officer who gave you this late-afternoon gift.

You're left to wonder what happened.  All you can do is stand there flat-footed with a growing sour-churn in the stomach.  Soon a letter arrives that explains everything.  It indicates you parked without paying the meter and putting a sticker in the window.

What changed?  The law.  That's what changed. How does one know the law has changed and that parking is no longer free on weekends during the month of August in Paris, France?  Search me.  I have no idea.  The French themselves don't seem to know.

To make matters worse, unlike in the US where you can go before a judge and cry your Crocodile Tears, in France there is no case.  There is not one single person you can see who will listen to you and, perhaps, take pity on you.  You simply have to pay.  Or else.  Period.  End of sentence.

How can the French stand it?  I smell a revolution.  That's what I smell.

The bright side of this little tale is that Jude and I do not own une voiture.  We moved here to explicitly enjoy the libertie, egality, fraternity associated with not owning a car.

Still, this is nasty business and I can see why the French tend to be grumpy.

This final award, therefore, goes to Those Who Shall Not Be Named, but who sneak things in on you when you're not looking.

[A short note regarding les crottes de chien.  Jude and I spied these today when we were out for a walk.  We just had to scurry back home to pick up our cameras.  The French have such a wicked sense of humor.  Sometimes.  When they're not working on being grumpy, that is.]

Around Town ~ ... somewhere outside Paris deep in the countryside...

[This entry is re-editted  from my Photographic Sketchpad blog]

Working with creative people here in France has opened up into being an incredible experience.

Sometime I would like to write about how and why creative expression is so different in France from what it is in the US.  I couldn't imagine the impact of the Catholic Church and the Ancien Regime on modern culture and creative expression, but I've learned a few things from talking with people that illuminate the topic well.  For this post suffice it to say that once I gained access to the artistic community, finding subjects eager to work with me has become a lot easier.

I am forever grateful to Arthur Morgan for personally introducing me an amazing group of people.  After our work was published in Fiction #19 (France) my association with M. Morgan gave me an all important Stamp of Credibility.  There's a French word for this.  I need to ask a friend to remind me what it is.

Recently, a friend of a costume artist I'd work with contacted me with the suggestion that we shoot in an old abandoned chateau.  How quick to you think I was to reply "hell yes!!!"?  Indeed.  I was very excited to be involved in the project.

We plotted and planned.  The project coordinator wrote in excellent English.  The model had a few interesting costuming ideas.  The makeup artist turned out to be someone we'd worked with.  Her boyfriend was interested in lending a hand on the project too.  Jude, my wife, was thrilled to come along after looking at a few images of the location.

On the day of the shoot we had several inauspicious events.  Jude bumped her head against a cabinet door that I'd left open.  The weather was to turn sour during our prime shoot time.  The chateau turned out to be at least an hour out of Paris by donkey cart or TGV.  I was unhappy to leave Jude behind but she needed to rest after her accident.

I kissed Jude goodbye and met Niko (aka: Project Coordinator and Abandoned Building Safety Officer) at his waiting donkey that was standing in front of our apartment building.  Into the saddlebags/boot/trunk (depending on which side of the Pond you live) went all the camera gear required to make serious photo-shoot many miles from home.

Just outside of town we could see a huge black cloud that stretched from horizon to horizon.  From time to time the sky lit bright with streaks of lightning.  The god Poseidon had risen from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.  Things did not look good.

Passing through the first wall of water was unlike anything I'd ever experienced.  We couldn't see the road.  We couldn't see any of the cars around us.  We swore we could see salmon trying to swim up-stream.  We didn't like the fact that it was August and these kinds of things Just Don't Happen pendant les conges annuels.  The drenching went on for far too long.

Eventually the Big Black Cloud finished having it's way with us and decided to move on to Paris to give everyone behind us an Equal Opportunity Drenching.  The Big Black Cloud would trap the model, the MUA (make-up artist), and her boyfriend just as they were leaving Paris.  It produced a enormous embouchon (traffic jam).

To me it was instantly obvious what needed to be done while awaiting the arrival of the rest of the team.  Exploring the site we learned from a man who used to live on the property (20 years ago) that the chateau had been sold and would be torn down in the next couple weeks.  Knowing this gave me a strong reason to get as much of it "on film" as I could.  It would be the first and last time I ever visited this most amazing place.

After working a couple hours with the model and team we packed up and headed back into town.  Greeting us over the Normandy horizon was the last of this year's Supermoons.  La lune hung in the evening sky guiding us back into Paris.

Around Town ~ Lyon

People we know were coming to France.

It was time to book our train and hotel, even as (for us) the TGV employees had gone out on strike and (for our friends) the US has raised it's terrorism threat level to chartreuse (or some related ugly color) and were being Extra Careful performing their searches of Everyone and Everything.


We were off to Lyon!

Our first French language classes back in the States were at the Alliance Francaise.  We met M. Guillaume (not his real name, we have to protect the innocent as well as the guilty, right?) and his wife there.  They were to be in Spain for a work related conference and were renting a burro to explore southern France for a week or two after work.

This was our first time in Lyon and had no idea what to expect.  So we fired up the DVD player and enabled it's connection to the "internets" to see a few BBC broadcast documentaries on the third largest town in France.  With a few episodes of "Barging Through France" and a couple other things under our belt, we were as prepared as we ever would be to take our invasion south.  There are things we know.  Things we don't know.  And then there are the things we don't know that we don't know.  Or so said some brilliant military strategist.


The first thing I noticed is how much like southern California it felt.  Lyon is warm, sultry, edging on dirty, and everything moves at a slower pace than points north (ie: Paris or Seattle - it didn't matter, the effect is the same).

One of the things we learned from Richard Goodwin is that someone named Paul Bocuse is God in those parts of the world.  We hear he had more than a little to do with something called Nouvelle Cuisine.  We also learned from RG that Lyon is lousy with les petits endoits called bouchon.  The food is by many accounts superior to what Parisian waiters slap down on a restaurant table.


In similar time I've been in the midst of a very serious reading of the Asterix series of graphic novels.  Wherein I learned rather important things.  Such as the historic importance of sanglier.  As was uttered in the movie Babe, pork is a nice sweet meat.  If there is anything on the planet tastier than European porc (wild or human raised), I've yet to find it.

Shortly after checking into our hotel room Guillaume and his wife checked into theirs.  It was good to see them after two years.  They had been one of our first visitors back when we lived for a short time near the Trocadero.  Their sons are well informed, well schooled, and talented in science and business.  We shared a bit of wine, food, and lots of conversation then.  This time without their boys it was just the four of us.


Wanting to avoid what we call "fussy food", we called down to the front desk to ask for reservations for a bouchon just around the corner.  Looking at the definition of bouchon one sees it's primary meanings include cork, stopper, cap, and fisherman's bobber.  Given these possibilities of translations we weren't quite sure what to expect.

Daniel et Denise is a friendly, welcoming place where the servers seem to enjoy practicing their English.  The food was decidedly not "fussy".  In fact, it's down right "homey."  I'm sure that had my mother been French instead of Austro-Hungarian that this is the kind of food she would have served.  Rich.  Simple.  Direct.  Wonderful to eat.  No knife is needed to get at the Good Parts of an amazing lamb roast.  In fact, no knifes are given.  Simply dechirer, dip in the sauce, and eat.  Even better when floated down-stream with a bottle or two of Cotes de Rhone.

Burp.  Bouchon, eh?  What were those translations again?


When the morning sun had taken over the last nights sky we headed up the hill to see what could be seen.  My wife must be part cat as she likes high places to watch things from.  What a view it was.  It reminded us of the kinds of views you have in Florence.  Red tile roofs and old building as far as the old city limits allowed.  With modern buildings beyond.

We spend a nice day visiting a Roman site that was recently uncovered.  We wandered an amazing basilica that's plopped squarely on top of the hill.  We negociated a steep walk down the hill, across the old town, and back to our hotel on the other side of the two rivers.  We were hungry.

Our Front Desk had to know we'd bug them a second time.  S'il vous plait, could you call for reservations for four at Les Federations, say, oh, around 20h00?  Merci.  This was to be our second bouchon in two nights.


Les Federations is smaller, tighter, and seedier than D&D's.  You need to ask questions about what's really on the menu.  Otherwise you end up with porc entrails stuffed into a sausage.  Avoiding that might be a trick.  Make sure your ears are well tuned to the word andoillette.  Other than that, the boudon noir is amazing, chicken in vinaigre nice, and the porc cheeks succulent.  Yes, rivers of Cotes de Rhone help float everything nicely down the gullet.

Ack!  I failed to mention all the Meaty, Corchony, Cheesy, Lardy Goodness that are put on the table to "assist" the flavors of the event.  Ask if you don't know what something is.  Even then you might not know, but you'll have words to look up later, if nothing else.  This will come in hand particularly during the Cheese Course.  Or just look up tue mouche before you dive in.  You'll be better prepared heading into battle.


Burp.  Burp.  Ah, bouchon... yes... something's coming to mind... swirling thoughts... stopper... cap... um...

M. Guillaume had driven us into the old town for dinner and was amazed to find a "great parking spot."  After a stroll through the streets, spying the scene of a waxing moon over the hill-top basilica, and standing slack-jawed at a well-lit church just around the corner, we came to learn the true nature of our "great parking spot."  Oh, the Lyonaise are a patient lot.  They'd have to be.  Without knowing it, our burro was parked right across the entry to a small parking lot.  There was no getting in or out of the lot.  We'd very successfully bouchon'd those cars into place.

We all agreed that M. Guillaume just spent his "Get Out Of Jail Free" card.


Our Last Supper found us returned to Daniel et Denise.  It was close and easy.  We knew there were more places to visit, but we were tired and all on the verge of coming down with something related to Overseas Travel Whilst Eating Rich Food Like Momma SHOULD Have Made.  We'd go lighter on the fare this time around at D&Ds.  So we called a third time down to the front desk.  Patient folk those Lyonaise are.

With Asterix-like pride I considered my Current Position.  So far it had been Lamb, Porc (during a lunch I fail to chronicle here) and Sanglier.  Why not round out the Tour with a wee-bit-o-Porcelet?  Why not, indeed.  Amazing stuff, properly prepared porcelet.  Floated down stream by a small creek of Cote de Rhone, of course.  Bouchon'ing the evening off this time with a Chartreuse digestif.

Burp.  Burp.  Burp.  I am completely and utterly bouchon'd.

There is too too much to try and cover here.  Yes.  I am thoroughly impressed by what the Romans accomplished.  Unlike modern times where America's Army occupies a country for a short time only to leave it a few years later in tatters and ruins, Roman ruins took thousands of years to develop.  In the mean time they ruled the Great Unwashed from fabulous buildings, created some amazing art, governed from Books of Law that spanned hundreds of years of successful application, and set the foundations for what now comprises much of Western Civilization.  But this is a story for another time.  Suffice it to suggest just how impressed I am.  Further research is required.


Our Day To Leave Lyon was a bit of a thrash.  Jude had left her purse somewhere the night before.  It was very likely bouchon'd between seat cushions or bouchon'd into a dark corner somewhere at the bouchon.  A call to the Front Deck confirmed they had un-bouchon'd her purse in their lobby seats the night before.  Promptly delivered, peace returned to our Fine Empire.  Whew!  That'd been a close call.

Jude had just spent her "Get Out Of Jail Free" card.

It was time to un-bouchon ourselves out of Lyon.  M. Guillaume and his wife pointed the burro back to Spain.  We took the T1 tramway to Part-Dieux, and jumped our 5 minutes en retard, mon dieu!!! TGV back to Paris.

What an adventure this had been.  So... where next...?  Any suggestions... anyone...?

Yet another post on the costs vs quality of US healthcare...

I've often said that the costs of medical care drove us out of the US to resettle and live in Europe.

It doesn't take long for a person interested in such topics to find the relevant supporting data.  Here is a post from today on ZeroHedge.  Cutting to the chase:

"...a recent study by the Commonweath Fund, looking at how the US healthcare system compares internationally, finds, "the U.S. fails to achieve better health outcomes than the other countries, and as shown in the earlier editions, the U.S. is last or near last on dimensions of access, efficiency, and equity." In other words: most expensive, yet worst in the developed world..."

For what we were paying in monthly insurance premiums in the US we can rent an apartement somewhere outside the city of Paris AND pay our European insurance premiums.

What more needs be said?

... and on the 6th of June...

It seems to me that the Meaning of Things here in Europe can be measured very differently than in the USA.  We're currently experiencing one of these moments when differences become obvious.



Years ago when Jude and I first came to Paris together, the map seller at the north entrance to Pere Lachaise cemetery smiled and warmly greeted us in excellent English when he learned we came from America.

In the hallway outside our apartment last week a normally rather reserved Frenchman reached over and squeezed my shoulder while he said "... thanks to our American friends..."

On Tuesday in our conversation group someone asked what we were doing on the 6th of June.  I mumbled something about "nothing special, why?"

Last night Jude and I watched part 7 of one of the BBC Farm series episodes and were struck by how deeply etched memories of the past remain.

This morning as Jude and I watched Telematin we realized the day's broadcast was to be cut short.  Broadcasting on France TV2 is given over to special programming with appearanced made by M. Hollande, M. Obama, M. Putin, Mme Merkel, and the Queen of England.


Taken individually we could pass each event off as something inconnu.  Taken in total a Thread of Meaning emerges.

So what was all this about, then?

At Pere Lachaise, the map seller said "...we French remember how you Yanks helped us."  Our neighbor said "... we French are free thanks to our American friends."  People in our conversation group wondered if we were going to pay homage to our shared histories.  The BBC Farm episode we watched helped educate us as to the size and scale of the effort the US put behind England and France.  Telematin prepared the way for a day of memory, human loss, and celebration of ultimate victory.

Today is the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy.  83,000 English and Australian soldiers and 73,000 Americans landed and parachuted onto France.  It was a huge, costly effort.  Omaha beach had not been properly bombed and the Allies met a much stronger than anticipated German force.  Over a 1,000 Americans died on the beach that day.  More than 4,000 English, Australian, and American soldiers were confirmed dead on the first day of the invasion.  By the end of June 875,000 men had crossed the channel from England to set foot on France.


I have to admit that the importance and meaning of history hadn't sunk in.  My most vivid memories of war were limited to seeing a few WWI (not WWII) vets who had suffered severe chemical burns that caused their faces to droop and to wondering how I could find a way to afford a Victory Year 1945 Phillipe Rothschild wine (which was rated as highly as the 1961 vintage from the same cellar).  Pretty meaningless and shallow stuff, this.

It's humbling to feel, not just pass by and read and lightly ponder, but to really feel and thereby know in a different and deep way that some events in history are extremely important to the present moment.  Many of the people we've met appreciate America for the support our politicians, industry, and countrymen actively gave to the liberation of France.

They know.  They remember.  They honor those who enabled peace in the present moment.

Beer in Europe ~ le cinquieme part

My conversation with Don The Oracle continues...

... it looks like my beverage selections 
have dwindled from a week ago... is it time
to restock...?

A quick look at a Wikipedia page about the History of Belgium Beer reveals a vast array of potentially confusing names and beer styles. Not one word about how taxes and The Church influenced choices of what to drink.  Yet, as Don The Oracle notes, One can imagine that over the centuries just about everything that can be taxed has been taxed and people have evolved strategies to avoid the tax.

What with the Church having been the vast, all pervading political and economic engine here in Europe, I can understand how Gruut fell out of favor as lower priced, tax evading, beer preserving, taste enhancing alternatives were developed.

On a different note, there seems to be little or no mention on the Wiki of Belgium Rocket Fuel called "Quadruple".  Many breweries ferment the stuff.  The alcohol content is typically between 9 and 14 percent.  A great example of this one of my All Time Favorites is Trippiste Rochefort #10 which has an ETOH level of 11 percent.  All malts.  No hops.

... the Real Stuff, this...

brewed only on Pleine Lune (full moon)...

hops are not used, either...

Meanwhile, a little closer to home, I find it fascinating that beer made in France is now predominantly industrial.  Ninety percent of everything brewed here is from one of the huge brewers.  It seems that with the Terror came a diaspora of Beer Making Monks.  They seem to have headed for Belgium and other points east.  The exception appears to be Bretagne. 

That Celtic region of what would later be included in the country we now know of as France was never, ever conquered by the Romans.  There is a wonderful series of graphic novels about the region which remain in print.  Asterix et Obelix books are Required Reading in the original language on the topic.  It's hilarious stuff, this.   With such a strong independent spirit, I suspect the Breton had more than a few things to say to the Clochards when they arrived, too.  In any event, I see I need to study the Beers of Bretagne a little more closely.

I've come to realize that the chief reason I enjoy beer to the degree I do is that it Tastes Great!  Wines, to me, while certainly very nice, just don't have a certain "body" to them that brew does.  I call it "chewiness." My taste buds being what they are, I know a good wine when I taste it, but I have no ability to predict which wines are "good" and which are not prior to uncorking the bottle.

The Gates of Heaven

The Bootlegger has a good selection of Belgium beer.

Which leads me to Don the Oracle's enlightening comments about the construct and depth of beer as compared to other ETOH-laden beverages -

The problem with preserving beer has to do with the amount of sugars, dextrin, and proteins left in the final product. Distilled spirits are almost entirely water and alcohol. The flavor components are probably in the range of parts per million. Wine is also more than 99% water and alcohol.  The flavor components being much less than 1%

Beer on the other hand can have a relatively large (couple of percent) amount of complex sugar, dextrin, even some protein left in the final product,Beer starts out as grain.  The grain is mostly complex carbohydrates, starches and protein.  To get anything fermentable the grain is malted.  It is soaked in water until it just starts to germinate. This releases a number of complex enzymes that start to metabolize the grain's stored energy to allow the plant to grow.  The germination is stopped to produce malt.

The malt is then mashed.  Mashing involves carefully heating the malted grain in water.  At various temperatures different enzymes become active and covert the proteins and starches into various forms of simpler carbohydrates (eg. sugars).  Depending on the malting and mashing processes the amount of grain converted into simple fermentable sugars can vary a lot.  Ultimately the mashed grain is boiled to dissolve out the sugars and add other flavorings such as hops.

Beer yeasts can only eat certain fairly simple sugars, there can be a lot of other more complex carbohydrates left behind.  Those remaining components contribute to the beer's flavor and texture.  There are things that can still eat those other sugars and those things are the ones that can spoil the beer.

Modern industrial brewing can pretty much convert all the grain's potential sugar to fermentable forms, plus they pasteurize the beer after it is bottled.  You can imagine that this form of complex chemistry was beyond the range of pre-industrial brewers.

... Nectar of the Gods...

There you have it.  A reminder of the common types of fermentation (Lager, Ale, Lambic).  A nearly rational understanding of how Belgium beer is made and labeled.   A rational explanation for why I like beer (finding that "chewiness" is real and that beer is more complex than, say, wine).  A clear understanding of what to try next and why.  Beers from Bretaigne are high on my list of things to seek out.  Gruut beer from Belgium must be found and sampled too.

So much to experience.  So little time to experience it in.  Don't you agree?

Beer in Europe ~ le quatrieme part

Enlightenment is at hand.  Truly.  It is.

... the Half Man Quadruple... at 11 percent ETOH...

I consulted The Oracle.  It is he I must thank for bringing my mind back to What's Important.

The Oracle happens to be a good friend and former colleague from the Software Engineering Wars we engaged in at a company we used to work for.  It is this trained in physics (as in science) Oracle who suggested that wherever you retire is where you'll put down roots.  Wise Man he is.  So it was natural that I would ask Don about beer.

Don has brewed beer for many years and shared a bottle or two of the delicious stuff.  His kind suggestions and comments have Cleared the Mind, as it were.  I can more clearly see the Lay of the Land of Beervana.  With these words -  I am no authority, but I have no objection to your passing my comments along - we begin.

... um... the year 1062?  Really??... WOW!...

First, a reminding comment about present styles of beer -

Beer, at least in modern times,  is generally divided into two main categories: Lager and Ale.

These are based on the type of yeast that is used.

Lager is generally fermented slowly at fairly cool temperatures.

Ale is generally fermented more quickly at normal room temperature.

Some people distinguish a third class of beers, Spontaneous.

This would be like one of the Belgium beers that is fermented by whatever happens to fall into the vat.

 

... what can a brewer learn in only

eight hundred years...?

 

 

Second, a few comments about hops and why they are used in present times -

Again over the millennia, preserving the fermented juice has always been problematic. An unimaginable variety of herbs and spices have been used in an attempt to preserve the product.  Hops are a relatively recent (in the grand scheme of things) solution to preserving the beer.  

Various styles have evolved often in response to conditions.  Scottish Ale for instance, brewed in a cooler clime, is high in malt and low in hops with a balance towards sweetness.

 

India Pale Ale, intended for shipment to the troops in sunny climes, is high in alcohol and was hopped very strongly to help preserve it before the days of refrigeration.

 

From this I take it that the introduction of hops in the beer making process was not an inevitability.  There have been many beer preserving solutions that were tried and discarded. I can imagine that this is because either the approach simply did not work, or because it was taxed by The Church or other Controllers of Local Economies.

I can also see where some of the beers I've enjoyed would not contain hops of any kind.  In particular, abbey beer recipes that pre-date the Age of Hops contain none of that preserving nonsense.  Perhaps it is that beer is meant to be Drunk Young?  One can only hope.

 

Barley wine. Expensive.  15percent ETOH.

Drink a bottle and go to sleep.

 

 

Third, a thought on beer terminology -

Terminology about styles of beer is probably as varied by region and the beers themselves.

 

Indeed.  Potentially confusing stuff, this.  Without a common language how can we know what we're drinking?

 

le cinquième part suivre...